


The Changing Light

by Zangofel



Series: Damn Stubborn Dreamer [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Confident Cullen Rutherford, F/M, Fluff and Angst, sweet smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-04-19 20:55:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4760720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zangofel/pseuds/Zangofel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's always noticed her, and never dared to hope she'd notice him. He almost doesn't catch it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Battleplans

“Commander.” 

Cullen turns in the hallway to see Tamsin approaching. She’s in that grey again, the silk tunic she wore when she returned from Val Royeaux. He _still_ doesn’t know what happened on that trip, and no one who went will talk about it. Even his soldiers have been sworn to secrecy, and the only one whose authority supersedes his is the Inquisitor herself. He supposes it’s none of his business, but not knowing makes him grit his teeth in frustration. 

“Commander?” 

Tamsin is at his side now, looking up at him curiously. 

“Ah, I’m sorry, Inquisitor,” he stammers. “I am lost in thought today.” A lie, but he can’t very well tell her that he was distracted by the sight of her, white hair and white skin nearly glowing in the dark corridor, the tattoos on her cheeks echoed by the lace branches covering her—

_Focus, damn you._

“-quite fine,” Tamsin is saying. “It seems it’s a strange day for everyone. I was wondering if you had a moment to spare.”

Cullen has to stop and think for a moment. He usually says yes without a thought—he can’t very well deny his commander—but when she found out that he missed a meeting with Rylen because she accosted him at the last minute a few weeks ago, she berated him into swearing to never lie to her again. 

And so, he replies honestly: “Only a moment, and can we eat and talk? I haven’t had lunch yet.”

“Of course.” Tamsin smiles at him, and he grabs for his train of thought like a drowning man grabs a rope. “Kitchen or tavern?”

He shrugs in response, and so she sticks her hands in her pockets and starts walking, evidently having decided for him. 

“I came to find you because I wanted to discuss Adamant.” Of course she did. Cullen resists the temptation to sag with disappointment. Why else would she seek him out. “I’m wondering if we should reconsider the strategy.” 

Cullen takes two long strides to catch up, and looks down at her in surprise. “Reconsider the strategy?” he asks. “We’ve already discussed it with Leliana and Cassandra.”

“Yeah, I know.” Tamsin reaches around the back of her head and pulls the bulk of her hair over her shoulder, fiddling with the ends in what he is beginning to think is a nervous habit. She does it in the war council, sometimes, though only when she’s thinking hard. “I’m concerned about the lives we might lose.” 

Cullen sighs, and she glances up at him, frowning. “I know,” she says irritably, “It’s not realistic to expect to save everyone-“

“Oh, no, no.” He holds up his hands. “I’m not—that is, I don’t think you’re being unrealistic.” Her frown shifts; she’s confused now. “I know that worry. You know you can’t do this without some loss of life, but you feel responsible for the soldiers in your care and don’t want to risk them if there’s another way.” Her face clears, and she smiles slightly.

“So what was that sigh?”

“I…” He can’t very well tell her it was a sigh of affection. Cullen fumbles, and after a moment, Tamsin laughs and looks ahead. 

“Ah, it’s fine. So I’m not crazy to try and work around it.”

“Not at all.” Cullen pauses as they enter the kitchens. The cook looks up at them, smiles broadly, and immediately goes to the larder. Five minutes later, they’re walking out the kitchen’s back door with a full plate of lunch each, without having said a word. 

“So tell me,” Cullen says, once they’ve decided on the boarded-up well as a table. Tamsin hops up and sits cross-legged on the wooden boards; he just leans against the stone side and rests his plate on the wood. “What did you have in mind?”

“I was wondering if we could use a strike force…” Tamsin tells him about her idea, slowly and carefully at first, but as he lets her continue uninterrupted, she begins to talk faster, gesturing as she talks and forgetting to eat entirely. She wants to put together a few squads of specialized warriors, get in and disable the fortress’s main points and then open the gate. Her eyes shine as she talks, and Cullen finds himself marveling at her resourcefulness. She’s not a natural tactician, not by a long shot, but for her to have thought this up on her own… 

It’s clear to him that she’s studied Adamant’s defenses, as she mentions specific towers and the advantages of forging up the embankment at the northeast side. He remembers the last time she visited his office and raided his bookshelves. He hadn’t looked at what book she’d taken; had it been the ancient one on fortresses built in Adamant’s era? That’s the only way she’d know about the tendency to put escape tunnels in the dungeons instead of the kitchens…

Clever, resourceful, stubborn woman, he thinks admiringly, and hates that when she stops talking and looks at him expectantly, he has to shake his head. 

“It won’t work.”

Tamsin deflates like a popped bubble. Cullen’s heart twists at that, and he keeps talking. “Your idea had substance, but we don’t have the manpower to make it work.”

“But the entire _idea_ is that we use fewer—“

“I know,” he says, and kicks himself for interrupting her even as he continues. “But we don’t have enough specialists. Our recruits are clever, driven, and strong, but most of them hadn’t held a spear more than a handful of times before they came here. The kind of tactics you’re talking about would require at least a hundred well-trained, extremely skilled fighters. Eighty, maybe, if we had a warrior at the head of each group, but we don’t have that kind of manpower at the level we would need.”

“Makers’ ashes,” she swore, staring morosely at her food. Cullen sighs and looks back at his own plate. It _was_ a strong idea. Can’t he do anything with it? 

“Although,” he says slowly, and suppresses a smile at how her head snaps up, “we might be able to integrate some of those tactics. It won’t replace the bulk of our force, but it can take the edge off. I’d need to talk to Rylen, and we’d need to do some fierce planning before we presented it to the council.”

Tamsin looks relieved. “I’ll take it,” she says, “if it’ll save lives. When can we work on it?”

Cullen scratches his scruffy chin—forgot to shave _again_ , damnit—as he thinks. “I’ll need a couple of days to get a list of potential fighters from Rylen…”

“That’s fine.” She beams at him. “Let me know when you have what you need, and we’ll figure out a time to sit down and work on it.”

“Alright.” Cullen can’t help but smile back at her. 

A moment passes, and then she says, “Didn’t you have to be somewhere? I’m not trying to rush you off, but…” 

“Ah! Yeah.” Cullen jumps, flushes, and grabs his plate. “I—“

“Leave it,” she says, waving at his plate. “I’ll take care of it. Go, Commander.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she says firmly, and waves a hand at him. “Off you go.” 

He grins and salutes her, and then turns and strides— _not_ rushing—towards the training grounds. The memory of her relieved smile sticks with him, so much so that one of his lieutenants has to ask a question three times before Cullen answers, but even that embarrassment can’t shake his feeling of hope. She wants to save her people, so badly. He’ll do his best to help. 


	2. Adjustments

The next several days are madness. Cullen sends a messenger to Tamsin to tell her he has the information he needed from Rylen, and she replies that she can’t meet today or tomorrow, but maybe the day after? But he can’t meet that day, either, and she’s busy the day after, and then she has to go to Crestwood to take care of an issue with the new mayor—

She’s gone for four days, and he manages a glance down from the battlements to ensure that she’s well and whole upon her return before turning his attention back to the work at hand. They’re not lacking for soldiers anymore, thankfully, but they’re starting to lack for space, and a shift in training means he needs to redistribute some of the men among new squads. He hates doing that—it always throws off cohesion—but there’s no getting around it, and once he figures that out, he needs to choose a captain to serve under Rylen. Rylen scoffed at the idea, but it has to be someone who can take over the man’s duties, if he should—Andraste preserve him—fall in the coming battle—

Cullen is wrenched out of his thoughts by a knock at his study door. He blinks and looks up from the papers on his desk. It’s dark out—when did that happen?—and the candle on his desk is so low it’s a marvel it’s still burning. He grimaces at the lost time as he calls “come in”, and the door opens to reveal Tamsin with a covered basket in one hand, a bottle in the other, and a sheaf of papers tucked under her arm. 

Cullen’s chair nearly topples when he shoots to his feet. “Inquisitor!” he says, hurrying around his desk to take something off her hands. “I’m sorry, I should have opened the door…” He blinks down at the basket, which is giving off some incredible aromas. “What is this?” His stomach rumbles loudly, and he flushes. 

Tamsin smiles up at him as she kicks the door closed. “No one’s seen you outside this office since I got back. I figured you needed some food.”

Cullen stares down at the basket, then the bottle, then looks to her. “You brought this?”

“I am standing here, aren’t I, Commander?” She grins. She’s wearing that crimson blouse, and when she tilts her head, the mirrored candles lining the walls make her hair glint gold. She almost looks like a flame herself.

Cullen shakes himself out of it, and steps back. “Th-thank you,” he stammers, beckoning to the chair opposite his. “Sit, please.”

She does so, placing her stack of papers on the corner of the desk, and then uncorks the bottle. “I don’t have glasses,” she admits, shamefaced. “I couldn’t carry them.”

“That’s alright, I… ah…” Cullen looks around, and realizes that he doesn’t have anything, just his own water canteen and an empty glass bottle in the corner. 

“Eh, sod it.” Tamsin shrugs and takes a swallow straight from the bottle. “Dorian would be scandalized,” she says, touching the back of her hand to her mouth, “but it’s still good.” She drops her hand to reveal lips stained dark by the wine. Cullen’s heart stutters.

_Damnit, you fool,_ Cullen thinks to himself. _You haven’t gotten enough sleep, that’s all._ He knows his cheeks are red, but wine sounds delicious and so he takes a gulp, too, trying not to think about the fact that her lips were just touching the very same rim. 

Tamsin doesn’t seem to see his blush. She’s taken the cover off the basket and is setting out the food: cheese, a couple pears, several meat handpies filled to bursting. Cullen’s stomach rumbles again, and she laughs. 

“Don’t hold back on my account,” she says, gesturing with one hand as she picks up a pear with the other. “I brought this for you.”

Cullen murmurs his thanks and grabs a pie. 

Tamsin leans back in her chair, bracing her shins against the edge of his desk, and pulls her dagger from her belt. She cuts paper-thin slices from the pear, eating each one slowly and deliberately, as if lost in thought. Cullen, despite his sudden awareness of his utterly _ravenous_ state, manages to eat with some manners, and therefore avoids embarrassing himself too badly.

“Better?” Tamsin asks with a smile, once he’s made it through three of the meat pies, half the cheese, and one of the pears. 

“Yes.” Cullen flushes. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” She tosses her pear core into the basket. “I forget to eat sometimes, too.”

“What’s that?” He inclines his head at the small stack of papers she brought.

“Oh, stuff about the siege tactics.” She shrugs. “I was going to see if you wanted to go over it, butyou’re clearly working on something.”

“No, no, I can look at it.” Cullen quickly stands and starts shuffling papers to make room. 

“But-“

“It’s fine, I promise.”

Tamsin leans forward, her small hand settling over his big one, and Cullen stills. He slowly raises his gaze to hers. 

“Don’t lie to me, Commander,” she says gently, reminding him of his earlier promise. Cullen blinks, and then smiles crookedly. 

“I’m not,” he promises. “I have been looking at these rosters for too long. Another project is a welcome distraction.”

Tamsin scrutinizes him for a moment. She seems to be satisfied with what she sees, and so she lets go of his hand. Cullen finishes clearing a space, pretending that the back of his hand doesn’t ache with the echo of her touch. 

Tamsin takes another swig from the bottle, then spreads her papers across the open space: lists of requisitions, a few weapon formulas, a handful of soldier rosters, and several dozen annotated diagrams of troop formations and fort defenses. Cullen recognizes the latter from his own reports; Tamsin has copied them meticulously, down to a not-to-scale wall separating the northwest and west turrets, and the little short-hand notation correcting the lack of accuracy. She doesn’t know what it means, otherwise she would have fixed the drawing, but still…

And _every_ page is covered in notes, tight little columns of lists and thoughts and questions crammed into margins and free spaces. 

“You did all this?” He asks, looking up. Tamsin nods, brushing a lock of silver hair behind her hear. 

“I was thinking,” she says, touching one of the rosters, “that if we split this squad int—what?”

Cullen is shaking his head. 

“The squads are organized very carefully. Rylen and I put them together to balance skill, temperament, and dynamics; it’s the only way our newer soldiers will keep up with the more experienced ones. If the squads are split up, those dynamics will change and the men won’t be as strong as you need them to be.”

Tamsin’s face falls. “Shit,” she groans, and sits back in her chair. 

Cullen brushes his palm across the papers, spreading them out a bit more. Tamsin’s no commander—that much is obvious—but she has good instincts. He traces the edge of a small column of notes thoughtfully. 

“There’s possibility here,” he says slowly. Tamsin lifts her head from her hands, frowning at him. 

Cullen stands up and leans over his desk, bracing his weight with his arms, and scrutinizes her notes. None of this information is new to him, but he can see a bit of what makes her such an excellent Inquisitor. She’s putting pieces together that he hasn’t thought of. Sure, she’s not a commander, and she doesn’t understand some of the finer points of leading thousands of men, but as tactics go, she’s… she’s very good. Here, with this dip in this wall… and that warhammer formula, with the runes… they can spare the time to get the resources for those. 

Tamsin studies him and waits silently. 

Cullen pulls a pen and inkwell towards him and begins to add to her notes. “Here,” he says, underlining, “and here-“ a circle “this is a good idea. If we used—“

Tamsin stands up and leans over the desk, so close he can feel the brush of her hair as it escapes from behind her ear. “Really?”

She steals the pen, fingers brushing over the back of his hand, and makes a mark. “But—“

“No, that won’t be a problem.” Cullen, emboldened by his lack of sleep and suddenly increased blood sugar, steals the pen back from her. 

Tamsin lifts her face, and she’s so close that he can feel the rush of air on his cheek as she grins at him. _Please, Maker_ , he begs silently, _don’t let my face be as red as it feels…_

“So I’m not wasting your time?” she asks. Cullen is startled into a quiet laugh. 

“Not at all,” he says. “This is clever and new. The whole of your idea won’t work, but we can use pieces of it.”

“Good,” she says firmly, and then, almost to herself: “Every life.”

“What?” Cullen asks.

She blinks at him, startled, and he realizes that she doesn’t know she spoke aloud. He repeats what she said, and she looks down. 

“Every life,” she says quietly. “I made a vow, after Haven, that I’d never be careless with a life ever again.”

Cullen frowns slightly. She thought she was careless, at Haven? He saw the burns on her arms, heard how she dragged survivors from burning buildings… But the memory of the lives they lost is sobering, and he can understand why she would swear such a thing. 

“I think you’ve more than fulfilled that vow,” he says, placing his hand on the stack of papers. There must be hours of work here, if not days. 

Tamsin rubs the back of her neck, and in that moment, her enthusiasm is replaced by exhaustion. She looks as if she is avoiding defeat by the barest of threads, and it is close to snapping. The sight twists his heart. 

“Maybe,” she says, “but I haven’t actually saved anyone yet. That’s why I’m here, Cullen.” The use of his name startles him. “I need your help. Will you help me?”

“Always,” he says immediately, and there is no moment of hesitation. This will be a long night, and so will those to come, but she’s hell-bent on saving lives, and he’s not going to stop her. Even if she saves only one person, that person could be Rylen, or Farraway, or even him. It could even be herself. He’ll be damned if he stands in the way of that. 

“So if this is partly good and partly useless, what can we save?” Tamsin looks down at her notes. Cullen follows her gaze, and begins picking papers out of the pile. 

“This is good, I like where you were going with pressure points. Keep the weapon formulas, those will be useful, and that requisition list. What did you mean when you wrote this note here?”

 

The clatter of boots as the watch changes startles them both.Tamsin looks up sharply, then winces and claps a hand to the back of her neck. Cullen can imagine what she’s feeling; his shoulders and neck ache, too. 

They’ve gone through the rest of the food, and Cullen is pretty sure Tamsin finished off the wine. She’s as steady as always, but her face is flushed and her lips stained red, and it’s distracting. Her notes have spread and multiplied; she’s standing in the middle of a spread on the floor, and he’s leaning against his desk, looking at those still on its surface. A few papers are propped up on his bookshelves, and she’s tacked four lists to the bale of hay in the corner with his throwing knives. 

At some point, Cullen took off his cloak and pauldrons, though he’s still in all the rest of his armor. Tamsin’s undone a few of her blouse’s buttons and rolled up her sleeves, and he can see the fine latticework of scars on her arms glinting silver in the light. She looks as much like a flame as she did when she first walked in, silver hair and pale skin glowing warmly, the rich crimson of her blouse bright and entrancing. 

“Oh, it’s late,” she says, as if she’s genuinely surprised by that fact. “I have— we have to be up early. We should… This…” She rubs the back of her neck again, blinking, and Cullen recognizes the wobbly train of thought of the truly sleep-deprived. 

Wordlessly, he begins to gather up the papers. Tamsin watches him, blinking in mild confusion as he crouches at her feet and picks up the parchment scattered across the floor. After he’s collected every paper, including those previously impaled on the hay bale, he turns to Tamsin and raps her gently on the head with the pile. 

She rubs her head and frowns at him, though it couldn’t have hurt. “Go to sleep,” Cullen says gently. “I will look at this more over the next few days, and we’ll meet again to discuss it. Say, four days from now?”

“Sure. What time? Dinner, again?” She gestures to his office, smiling crookedly. “Though perhaps not this late.”

“Not this late,” he agrees, smiling back at her, and opens the door. A gust of cool night air rushes in, making the candles gutter. “Goodnight, Inquisitor.”

“Tamsin,” she says. He blinks at her, brain stuttering at the correction. 

She waits. 

After a moment, he echoes her: “Goodnight, Tamsin.”

“Goodnight, Cullen.” She smiles at him, a gentle, tired, genuine smile, and leaves his tower.

Cullen dreams of candlelight.  

 


	3. Revelations

“Inquisitor?” Cullen asks, stopping short at the top of the stairs. Tamsin turns to face him, bottle in hand.

                  “Don’t get overwhelmed,” she says firmly. “I wanted to make up for the messy meal delivery the other night.”

                  Cullen doesn’t bother mentioning that he actually liked the impromptu appearance of his earnest Inquisitor and what amounted to a picnic basket. Tamsin’s set an actual table with proper silverware, and even a glass for each of them.

                  Sure, it’s a plain table, with simple linen napkins and single plates, but it’s more than he’s had in a while—and that thought makes Cullen realize just how many meals he’s been eating at his desk.

                  “It’s kind of you,” he says, setting their planning papers down on her desk. Tamsin beams at him, encouraged by this response, and seats herself.

                  Cullen sits opposite her, and finds that the food is good, simple, and plentiful. A part of him had worried that this would be something fancy and complicated—multiple salads, the like—and while he could navigate those dinners just fine, years and years as a soldier had made him more comfortable at a crowded table with friends and simple food you had to grab for.

                  Tamsin asks him cheerful, mild questions, and he finds it’s no difficulty to keep up a gentle thread of conversation through the entire meal. She professes not to be a diplomat, but the Inquisitor is a good conversationalist, and it’s none of that absurd small talk. She doesn’t mention the weather once, and he’s grateful for it.

                  Once they’ve both eaten their fill, they turn their attentions to the siege on Adamant. This conversation, while more intense, comes just as easily as their discussion of Fereldan geography and the Lavellan clan.

                  They spread the papers out on the floor again—it turns out that they both pace as they think, though Cullen does it slightly more than Tamsin does, and so the floor is the only surface large enough for all the notes they need to keep near them. This squad or that squad, how many enchanted weapons can she and Harrit make, is it reasonable to try and put a mage for every five soldiers, what if this dip in the wall is actually a trap, or worse yet, a genuine weakness, and if it’s a weakness, what are they concentrating their energy on so much that they missed a faulty section of wall—

                  They work later than they intended, though not so late as the first night, and when they give up and admit the real need for sleep, Cullen takes the papers with him, promising to have answers to their questions when they meet again.

                 

                  The week of the march to Adamant draws nearer and nearer, and they find themselves needing, and unable, to meet more frequently. They take what they can get: late nights in an office or quarters, then early mornings on a quiet section of the battlements, and conversations with Josephine, Cassandra and Leliana wherein they finish each others’ sentences. Cullen sleeps fitfully, dreaming of cold steel, hot flame, and the vile crimson of Corypheus’s magic.

                  One cold morning, a week before they’ll set out, he realizes that his dreams, while anxious and frightening, don’t linger once he wakes. He ponders this, leaning on the battlements and looking out at the brilliant sunrise. Why? His dreams usually haunt him. Has something changed? He saw Corypheus, just like he saw the Fereldan circle, so it’s not that they’re not real…

                  “Good morning, Cullen,” Tamsin calls. He turns to see her approaching with two steaming mugs of what turns out to be spiced cider, and he nearly groans in pleasure when the warmth hits his bones.

                  He forgets his wonderings, and they don’t come back to him.

                 

                  Finally, finally, they have a plan. They have two days before they set out. It’s just enough time for Cullen to brief Rylen and the men they’ve decided to include. Tamsin’s messengers pop into his office throughout the day, delivering the weapons they agreed upon. Cullen thanks them, but he’s busy, and doesn’t have a moment to ask after the Inquisitor between briefings and drills.

                  Halfway through the evening, there’s yet another knock at his door. Cullen has been alone for less than half an hour and he’s really starting to crave a cold beer and a quiet moment to himself, but duty calls, and so he contains a sigh and calls, “Come in.”

                  It takes him a minute to recognize the person that walks through the door, despite the massive warhammer in her hand and the faint green glow coming from her palm. Tamsin is covered in soot, her silver hair a dull grey, her pale skin nearly the same shade as a Qunari’s.

                  He stares at her stupidly for a moment, then jumps to his feet and strides over to take the warhammer from her. She wilts a little when he lifts it from her hands, as if it had taken the last of her strength to carry it to him.

                  Cullen sets the hammer down against the wall—it’s heavy to _him_ , and he’s used to using a greatsword—and places a hand on Tamsin’s shoulder. Soot puffs from her tunic, and she winces. “Sorry.”

                  “Don’t apologize,” he says firmly, and nudges her towards the hay bale.

                  She sits with an exhausted sigh and rests her head back against the wall. She almost blends into the stone.

                  Cullen grabs his water canteen and looks around for a moment, then sighs and says to her, “Don’t leave.”

                  She looks up, tilting her head in surprise, but Cullen is already halfway up the ladder to his room above.

                  He finds what he’s looking for and descends a moment later to see that she’s tilted her head back against the wall again, and seems, to all appearances, to be asleep.

                  Cullen sighs and shakes his head, and she cracks open a single lavender eye. “What?”

                  “Nothing.” He wets one of the handkerchiefs he retrieved from above and offers it to her. Tamsin stares at it blankly for a moment, then looks up at him. Cullen suddenly feels very stupid. “It’s for… for  your…” he stammers, and gestures lamely towards his own face. Andraste’s tits, has he offended her?

                  Tamsin blinks at him, then smiles, sudden and startlingly white in her ashy face. “Thank you,” she says, and takes it from him.              

                  The tight knot of tension in his chest loosens. Cullen soaks the other one, too, and hands it to her when the first is streaked with black.

                  “Sorry,” she says, wincing at the sight of the stained linen. “I’ll buy you a new one. That won’t come out.”

                  “Ah, it’s okay,” he reassures her. “I don’t mind.”

                  Tamsin shoots him a skeptical look, but takes the second kerchief and cleans the rest of her face and her hands, then presses it to the back of her neck with a grateful sigh and leans her head back again.

                  Cullen crouches in front of her. “You shouldn’t have worked yourself to exhaustion.”

                  “Excuse me,” she says, glancing at him without moving her head, “I am not worked to exhaustion.” The indignation in her voice is just teasing enough to keep him from stammering an apology. “I will be fine. I just need to sleep.” A pause. “For a day and a half.”

                  Cullen sighs and shakes his head. “Inquisitor…”

                  “Tamsin,” she corrects.

                  “ _Inquisitor_ ,” he repeats firmly, and Tamsin flinches. Cullen feels as though he’s been struck. “What?” he asks, his original train of thought gone. “What is it?”

                  Tamsin shakes her head, but it’s a wry, half-hearted gesture. Cullen’s frown deepens. “What happened?”

                  “You,” she says softly, and Cullen flinches now too, just a little. “After all these months, all we’ve been through, you still refer to me by a title.”

                  “But…” he falters. He was trying to be respectful. “You are. The Inquisitor, I mean.”

                  “And you’re the Commander, but I don’t say ‘Commander’ every time I address you.” She pauses, and then adds, “Should I?”

                  “No,” Cullen says, too firmly. She shoots him a look.

                  “That’s how I feel when you call me Inquisitor. We’ve been working together for hours at a time, for weeks now. Pretty successfully, too, I think.” Cullen nods, but she’s tilted her head back against the wall again and doesn’t see it. “I don’t understand why you keep calling me by my title instead of my name. I thought we’d passed that. Thought we had more than that.” She pauses. That last phrase sends Cullen’s heart racing. More than that? More than what? More than a business relationship, probably. She just means friendship. Tamsin adds, quietly, “Unless I was wrong and you secretly hate me.”

                  “No!” The word pops out of its accord, so loud and forceful that Tamsin’s eyes pop open in surprise. Cullen’s face flames red, he can feel it, and he barely resists the urge to look away. “I don’t hate you,” he says firmly. “Far from it.”

                  “Then call me by my name,” she says, and it’s not a command, or even an officer’s request. It sounds… it sounds like a plea. “I’m tired of just being the Inquisitor, Cullen. Call me by my name.”

                  “Alright,” he promises, and then swallows and says, “I will, Tamsin.”

                  A small, honest smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. “Thank you,” she says, and leans her head back against the wall again.

                  Cullen’s head feels like it’s full of fabric. He goes to his desk and pulls a flask—a vice he usually keeps well-controlled—from his desk drawer. A pull later, he’s feeling better, if still slightly off-balance.

                  “Share,” Tamsin says, and he turns to see her extending one hand in his direction, eyes still closed and head still resting against the wall. She must have heard the pop of the cork.

                  Cullen walks over and reaches down to place the flask in her waiting hand. Tamsin lifts it to her lips and takes a big swallow, starts to hand it back to him, then changes her mind and drinks again before returning the flask.

                  Cullen would raise an eyebrow at that, but he can’t blame her. She looks like hell. Beautiful, elegant, fearsome hell, but hell all the same.

                  “How are we doing?” she asks.  Her mouth is the only part of her that moves. “Is our planning worth something?”

                  “I believe so.” Cullen leans against the wall beside her; there’s no room on the hay bale, and he’s unwilling to drag his chair over or sit on the floor. “The men are ready and they seem determined, if not enthusiastic.”

                  Tamsin smiles a tiny, crooked smile. “I can’t blame them.”                

                  “Me neither,” Cullen admits quietly.

                  “I hope it works,” she says, almost to herself. “Creators, please let it work. Let us get home with our men alive.”

                  Cullen doesn’t bother pointing out that there’s no way everyone will survive.

                  “Where will you be?” she asks.    

                  “Leading the charge,” he replies, “And holding the gate once you get it open.”

                  “Right.” Tamsin opens her eyes, finally, and looks up at him. “Don’t get hurt.”

                  “It’s battle,” he points out mildly, and she scowls at him.

                  “Don’t get hurt,” she repeats. “Please.”

                  Cullen laughs, a tiny, crooked sound. “I’ll try, but if I can’t keep that promise, Rylen can handle the promotion. I’ve had him at my side for every…” he peters off as she shakes her head firmly.

                  “No,” Tamsin says, and her voice is hard as dragon bone. “No. You are going to make it through this, because I… because you have to.”

                  Cullen has no idea what to say to that. He just blinks down at her. “You have to,” Tamsin repeats, holding his gaze. “Understand?”

                  “Why?” The question’s out before he can stop it, and Cullen kicks himself so hard he’ll have a mental bruise for a week. _Why?_ _Because you’re the commander, you arse. She trusts you. She needs you._ “Sorry, never-“

                  “Be honest with me,” Tamsin interrupts, and gets to her feet so she’s as close to eye level with him as she’s going to get. The standing shuts Cullen up faster than the interruption does. “Promise me you’ll be honest, Cullen, because I don’t have time for lies or games, and neither do you.”

                  Lies? Games? What?

                  “I promise,” he says solemnly. Tamsin nods at that, and then, for the first time in weeks, she truly falters. Cullen stares in surprise as she looks down at her hands, taps the toe of one boot against the ground. Is she… nervous?

                  A tiny flutter starts up in his heart, and he tries his best to crush it, but it won’t stop.

                  “I’m hot in here,” Tamsin says, her voice a little soft. “Can we walk outside?”

                  “Uh, sure.” Cullen doesn’t know what to do except open the door to the battlements. Tamsin walks through, accepting the gentlemanly gesture for once. The walking seems to help her regain her composure, and by the time they’re a dozen paces from his tower, she’s walking tall and strong again. She stops just before the stairs to the next tower and turns to lean on the stone supports.

                  “Did… did you want to talk about something?” Cullen asks, when the silence stretches too long. Tamsin turns to look at him, and she is, for the first time he can remember, struggling to find the words. So he waits.

                  Finally, she says quietly, “I don’t want to do this without you.”

                  Cullen frowns in confusion. “Without me? Tamsin, I just promised that you wouldn’t lose me at Adamant. I do try to keep my promises.”

                  “That’s not what I mean.” Tamsin glances down at her hands and wipes them on her tunic, which just streaks more grey across her hands. “I…”

                  Cullen has a feeling he knows where this is going. His stomach does a flip.

                  “I feel stronger when you’re with me,” Tamsin says. “And warmer. I hate this siege, but it’s given me a reason to spend time with you, and that almost makes it worth it. That might be a terrible thought. I don’t really care. I care for you. A lot. I don’t want us to come back from this and go back to only trading casual words.”

                  Cullen can barely breathe.

                  “If you don’t feel the same, I’ll understand,” Tamsin continues quietly. “Elves aren’t exactly… well, I’ll understand.” And now she meets his eyes, and her pale violet gaze is hopeful in an exhausted sort of way. “But tell me now, so I know what to expect when we get back from this.”

                  Cullen can’t damned _speak_. He gapes at her like the ninny that he is.

                  “If you don’t say something,” Tamsin warns—is her voice _shaking_?—“I’m going to take it as a no and walk away, and this will be the last we speak of it.” She gives him a long look, and then takes a step to the side to turn.

                  Cullen swallows, and then grabs her arm, “Don’t,” he said, and his voice is rough and cracking. He sounds like a boy barely out of his teens. Damn it.

                  Tamsin looks back at him, gaze guarded, but listening.

                  “I don’t hate you,” he says, because it’s the first thing that comes to mind, and then claps his hand over his mouth and groans a groan of pure _I’m-an-idiot_ frustration. Tamsin blinks at him once, twice, and then laughs.

                  It’s not a mean laugh. It’s soft and relieved. “I’m glad,” she said. “Is there more?”

                  “Yes,” he says, and then falters again. “I… don’t know how…”

                  “Have you ever wondered?” Tamsin interrupts, and Cullen hears a quiet hope in her voice, and also a strange sort of weight that shouldn’t be there, like she’s asked the question before and is afraid of the answer.

                  “Yes,” Cullen says. He doesn’t want her to be afraid of the answer. And he wants to be honest. “I’ve wondered. But I… I never dared to hope. You’re the Inquisitor. It seemed… seems… seemed—“ Tamsin cracks a smile at his struggles over tense, and he gives up on that sentence. “I didn’t think it could ever happen.”

                  “And if I wasn’t?” Tamsin asks quietly, and he has to step closer to hear her. Well, he wants to step closer, and her voice is a good excuse. “If I wasn’t the Inquisitor? What would you think then?”

                  “I would think,” Cullen murmurs, and he can see goosebumps rise on her skin when he speaks, “That I would be a fool if I didn’t do something.”

                  “Something?” Tamsin breathes, lifting her face just a little. Cullen braces an arm on the parapet as he leans toward her. There’s a hint of a smirk at the corner of her mouth—pure, pleased mischief—and he returns the smile twice over, seeing how a flush rises in her cheeks at the pull of his lips—

                  “Commander!”

                  The door to his tower slams, and the moment is broken. A surge of anger rips through Cullen. He drops his head, grinding his teeth, then turns slowly towards the intruder. A soldier is approaching, papers in hand. “I…” The soldier looks up, sees the Commander and the Inquisitor. “I…”

                  “ _What_?” Cullen snarls.

                  “Th-the report, sir,” the soldier says softly, raising it with one hand. “From Sister Leliana. You wanted it as soon… as soon as possible…” He looks between them. “O-or, to your desk…”

                  “Good idea,” Cullen growls, and the soldier bows, murmurs, “Inquisitor,” as respectfully and quickly as he can, and then turns tail and flees.

                  “Always the Inquisitor,” Tamsin says wryly behind him, and he can hear the rustle of cloth against stone as she turns. “We have too much to do. I shouldn’t keep you from…”

                  _No,_ Cullen thinks, sudden and sharp. _No. Don’t, don’t turn away—_ because if she turns away he won’t have the courage to go after her, and now that he knows her mind, he’ll kick himself right off this mountain if he loses her.

                  Cullen turns, catches her face in his hands and kisses her.

                  She freezes, and he feels a moment of blind panic— _shitshitshit what have I done—_ and then the most wonderful warm uncurling of relief as she relaxes into him. She slides her arms around his shoulders, steps closer to him, and kisses him back.

                  She tastes like mint and smoke and perfection. She is warm and small and fragile and unbreakable in his arms, and he is… he is kissing her for too long.

                  Cullen pulls back, murmuring “Sorry,” and then, because he has evidently lost any semblance of a filter, “I… that was… really nice…” Correction, he lost any semblance of a filter or basic sense.

                  But Tamsin grins up at him, black and white and violet and scarred, and says in that warm, very Tamsin, very un-Inquisitor voice, “Do that again.”

                  Cullen blinks down at her, and then chuckles, leans down, and kisses her again. She’s smiling against his lips, he can feel it, and as he steps closer to the wall, braces her against the parapet and makes up for all the kisses he’s denied himself over the last two months, something in his heart falls into place.


	4. Resolutions

                  It takes them a week to march to Adamant, and since the entire Inquisition forces are clustered around them, as well as all of Tamsin’s companion warriors and the usual camp followers, there are no stolen kisses, no sweet touches, only fleeting, significant glances and tiny shared smiles. When Cullen is  near to bursting with the want— _need_ —to kiss her again, he reaches into his heart and feels that small piece that fell into place, and remembers the kisses they stole, that night and the next, the gentle, testing, fleeting kisses of  those ten years their juniors. But oh, they were sweet.

                  She finds him before she and her three companions lead the strike force into Adamant. Under the guise of some last minute advice, she gets close enough to him to murmur, “Don’t you leave me,” and squeeze his hand.

                  Cullen squeezes her hand in return before she slips away. “I won’t,” he promises the air and whatever gods are listening, and then adds, as an afterthought, “Don’t you leave me, either.”

                 

 

                  Four hours. Four hours of fighting, charging, slaughtering demon and Grey Warden alike to hold the fort while Tamsin, Bull, Solas and Dorian force their way to the heart of the fortress. Four hours of repeating scripture in his heart while he swings his blade and roars like the lion whose sigil he bears.

 

                  Six minutes. Six minutes between when he, having fought his way to the battlements, sees the dragon approaching and when the entire side of the fort that Tamsin was fighting on falls into the Fade. Six minutes to go from exhilaration to fear to dread to despair.

 

                  Seventy-three minutes. Seventy-three minutes during which Cullen wonders if his stomach has left him entirely, and taken the rest of his internal organs with it, because he feels both impossibly sick and utterly empty. Seventy-three minutes, during which he forces the wave of grief back again and again, and commands his men to take Adamant for their vanished (not fallen, please not fallen) leader.

                 

                  Eight hours. Eight hours that start with the return of the Inquisitor in a blaze of divine green power, span the swift dispensing of justice and large decisions, and end with the Inquisitor and her visibly rattled—or, in Solas’ case, elated—companions making the decision to return to Skyhold ahead of the bulk of the army, in pursuit of a moment’s peace. Eight hours that start with Cullen feeling his heart return to him with the force of a Qunari’s fist to the chest, deny him more than a passing glimpse of her, much less a moment alone, and end with Cullen on a bluff, watching the Inquisitor race eastward atop Da’Revas until she disappeared over the horizon, at which point the terror and agony of the last thirteen hours and nineteen minutes catch up to him and he vomits once, twice, and then sits awake on his bedroll the entire night, unwilling to see what terrors are waiting for him when he sleeps.

                 

                  And then it takes him eight days to get back to Skyhold.

                  He is so exhausted by the time he returns that he doesn’t really register the now-constant ache in his chest from needing to see her, to reassure himself she’s real and truly come back to them. To him. He sees his men sorted, the wounded sent to the infirmary and the cook set up to feed a ravenous army, the horses to the stables and the list of the fallen to Josephine, and then it’s all he can do to drag himself up to his loft of a bedroom, divest himself of his armor, and collapse into bed.

                  He’s alert and crouched by the wall, sword in hand, before he even realizes something woke him. A creak, he thinks, shifting through indistinct, half-dreamt memories. Not a door, the ladder.

                  A head pops into view through the hole in his floor, and then its accompanying body lifts itself smoothly and silently into the room. Cullen takes a cautious step. The floor creaks under his feet. The form whirls, he dashes, and he’s got her pinned against the wall with his sword across her throat and something cold and sharp sliced through his tunic, pressing over his heart.

                  The feel of the blade makes him pause. He blinks, refocuses, and sees that it’s Tamsin he has pressed against the wall. Her jaw is set and her knife arm is steady, but her eyes are shining with the most awful mix of hope, relief and alarm, but she’s _alive_ and _here_ and he has a blade to her.

                  Cullen drops his sword with a clang. After a moment, Tamsin lowers her own blade and sheathes it, then looks up at him. The alarm in her expression has been replaced by a quiet wariness.

                  “Tamsin,” he whispers, and raises his hand to cradle her cheek. She presses her face into his palm, then turns just enough to drop a kiss on the heel of his hand, and he is done for.

                  Cullen closes his eyes, but the tears come anyway. He feels, more than hears, the intake of breath when she sees them, and she presses forward, wraps her arms around him, pushes her face into his chest—Maker, no, his tunic is sweaty and filthy, but she won’t budge—and then he feels the damp of her tears soaking through the fabric.

                  He’s not sure whose knees give first. Maybe his. Maybe hers. Some small, prideful part of him hopes it was hers. They end up on the floor, heedless of the dust and rubble still under their feet. Tamsin clings to him, arms around his back, face pressed against his chest, and he holds all of her slight frame in his arms, lips pressed to the top of her head and tears soaking into her silver-white hair.

                  Eventually—he doesn’t know how long it takes—they stand up long enough to shuffle the few feet to his bed. It’s more comfortable than the floor. Tamsin crawls into Cullen’s arms and he holds her tight. As his tears dry, hers renew in strength, and there is so much more behind the sobs wracking her body than his simple grief and turmoil. They resonate in his bones the way his dreams of the Fereldan Circle do.

                  And so he holds her, cradles her against his chest, ignores the state of his tunic and the rest of him, and lets her cry. One hand traces a soothing pattern up and down her back, and he can feel the gasp and catch of her lungs as she sobs and sobs and sobs, as her sobs turn into soft wails, then to hiccups, and then to silence.

                  Finally, she lifts her face, and he winces to see the smudge of dirt on her cheek from his tunic, but doesn’t mention it.

                  “I’m sorry,” she whispers. Cullen frowns at her.

                  “For?”

                  “For leaving.” She presses her forehead to his collarbone, takes a few shuddering breaths, and then looks back up. “I told you not to, and then I did. I’m sorry.” Her face crumples a little, but she has no tears left. Her cheeks are damp and red from crying herself out.

                  Cullen tucks a hand under her chin, tilts her head up, and leans down to kiss her cheeks. He kisses each multiple times, as if he could kiss away all the tears that had come before, and when he lifts his head, she has a tired, weak little smile on her face that warms his heart.

                  “I forgive you,” he whispers, and she presses her lips together in anticipation of more tears that won’t come. When her eyes stay dry, she lifts her hands, catches his face between them, and pulls him down for a proper kiss.

                  Their kisses are hesitant and disbelieving, and then relieved and reassuring—and then Tamsin props herself up on her elbows, pressing up against Cullen and into the kiss, and a spark ignites.

                  A rush of heat burns the exhaustion from Cullen’s bones. He slides one arm under her back, pulling her to him, and rolls them both over.

                  Tamsin straddles him easily, and he spares a prayer of thanks that she’s so small, because she has to rest nearly at his waist to kiss him. If she was any lower—his brain, and his breath, stutters.

                  Tamsin grins against his skin, lips tracing a hot line across his jaw. "Finally," she whispers. Her lips rasp against his stubble.

"Finally?" He echoes.

"I have wanted to do this since the moment we stepped out of the Fade." The mention of her ordeal is sobering, but Tamsin's lips find his again, and the moment passes.

"That long?" He asks a moment later.

She sits up so she can meet his gaze. Her pale eyes glimmer faintly in the moonlight coming in through the hole in the roof. "Longer," she says firmly, "But the moment I knew we were safe, I nearly dragged you away into a corner somewhere."

Cullen grins at the picture her words conjure. He has no doubt she could drag him off if she wanted, but it would look strange. Tamsin is quite small. She purses her lips in mock annoyance at his face, but can't hold the expression. She watches him for a moment, a look he can't read on her face. He's about to ask when she speaks:

"Elgar'nan," she swears softly, and swoops down to kiss him again.

Cullen tilts his head back as her mouth slips to his neck, and her kisses slow, her tongue drawing flames down the twist of his neck, lingering on the raw skin where his helmet chafed.

                  The heat of her mouth stings on the tender skin, and the pain goes straight to his head. He lets out a quiet groan.

                  Tamsin pauses, and he can _feel_ the mischief as she laves her tongue along the line again and then exhales softly. The cold makes him shiver deliciously.

                  “ _Maker_ ,” he groans. She exhales on a laugh, and then her kisses start moving again. She shimmies down his body a little farther, and he barely musters a thought before she’s straddling his hips and he is acutely aware of _just_ how aroused he is.

                  Tamsin’s breath hitches, and a shudder runs all through her. His hands, which had been resting on the small of her back, snap to her hips, and she shudders again as he grips her, holds her still so she can’t move against him.

                  Tamsin wiggles, trying to move enough to work his tunic free from where its trapped under her legs, but his grip is iron.

                  “Cullen,” she breathes, _pleads_ , and his hands twitch of their own accord. It’s just enough for her to yank the hem free and pull his tunic up, so she can bend down, press an open-mouthed kiss against his skin, move her mouth and do it again, and then bloody _nips_ him—but it’s the shift of her weight, the roll of her hips against his that makes him tighten his hands on her hips, force her to be _still_ , damn it.

                  She squirms fruitlessly against his hold, and then _whimpers_.

 _“_ Andraste’s tits,” he breathes, “Tamsin, _please_.”

                  “I’m _trying_ ,” she replies petulantly, and squirms again. She can’t move from side to side—he’s made sure of that—but she’s clever and lithe and manages to twist just a little. It’s barely a movement, the tiniest slide, but his breath catches in his throat and he groans nonetheless.

                  “Not what I meant,” he chokes out. “ _Stop_ , damn you.”

                  She freezes in entirely the wrong way.

                  Cullen snaps his head up, finding her gaze, which is confused and hurt, and a roaring starts in his ears.

                  “I didn’t mean that,” he says, raising one hand to her cheek. “Not like that. Just…” He falters. She eyes him. Slowly, the hurt on her face fades, and he has barely a moment to register the new expression in her eyes before she presses her palms against his abdomen for leverage and rolls her hips.

                  It’s like a bolt of lightning up his spine. His head slams back against the pillows. “Damn you,” he manages, the words strangled and half-hearted. Tamsin chuckles, a dark sound that sends another shock chasing the first.

                   Cullen grabs her again, but now that she’s started moving he can’t stop her, and it takes everything he has not to pull her against him, guide her rhythm and lift his hips against her. A groan rips from his throat—she’s warm and soft and _wicked_ against him. It’s the most delicious torture he can imagine. His grip tightens, making her rhythm catch, her hips tilt downward just the tiniest bit. Tamsin gasps and moans, finally, ever-so-quietly. It's the richest sound he's ever heard.

                  Cullen surges upward. He wraps one hand around the back of her neck, fits his mouth over hers and kisses her like a dying man. He’s desperate, he knows he is, and he knows it’s painfully obvious, and he doesn’t care. Maker, she tastes like wine and lust, and when he swipes her bottom lip with his tongue, he can taste the salt from his own skin.

                  Tamsin twines her hands into his hair and grips just hard enough to hurt. He nips at her bottom lip, then takes a fistful of silver hair and pulls.

                  He wanted to make her tip her head back and bare her throat to him, because nothing sounded better than unbuttoning that high collar and leaving his mark on that perfect dip between shoulder and neck. He expected her to let him, maybe give him a playful glare before she tilted her chin up—expected it to be a movement in a series of movements, all hazy and possessive and fierce.

                  The moan that rips from Tamsin’s throat is so loud and wanton that it worries him. Cullen pulls back; her lavender eyes are fogged over with lust, and there is a deep flush spreading over her cheeks. Tamsin catches his concerned look, and her blush deepens.

                  Experimentally, he tugs on her hair again. She shivers, a full-body thing that ripples through both of them, and her eyes flutter closed for a moment.

                  Cullen grins. Tamsin scowls at him. “You look pleased with yourself,” she says, but any malice she might be trying for is utterly ruined by the desire in her voice. It’s so thick he can almost taste it.

                  “I am,” he breathes. The way she shivers again at the sound of his voice delights him. He pulls on her hair again—gently, guiding rather than fierce—and she moans softly, but tips her head back, lets him cradle the back of her skull in one hand and lay claim to the creamy skin of her throat. His other hand, still resting on her hip, quirks invitingly, and she rolls her hips obligingly, and then earnestly. She wraps her hands in his tunic, pulling until he wonders if the fabric will tear.

                  Cullen bites down—gently—on the tendon that stretches from neck to shoulder, and her rhythm fails entirely. _“Fuck_ ,” she moans, “Oh, gods…”

                  “Yes?” he rumbles with a confidence born of a dangerous mix of exhaustion and lust. Tamsin brings her head back up. The way she looks at him, eyes heavy-lidded, lip caught between her teeth… He almost swears too. As it is, the hand on her hip tightens, pulling her a little closer.

                  “You… I…” She’s _speechless_. Cullen grins shamelessly, and she scowls and thumps one fist half-heartedly against his chest. He ducks in for a kiss. He means it to be gentle, but when she melts into him, opens her mouth and swipes her tongue against his scar… well.

                  Some small part of him has been paying attention to the ache in his bones and keeping track of his exhausted state. That same part of him wanted to put a stop to things earlier, afraid that he would drop into a dead sleep in the middle of kissing her, or something more embarrassing. But at that moment, with her pliant and burning in his arms, that part of him falls silent. He wants nothing more than to know what she looks like when she comes.

                  She must feel something in his kiss, and then see something  in his eyes, because she pulls away, takes a look at him, and then grabs his bunched-up tunic and pulls. He raises his arms obligingly. Tamsin whips the article off him, tossing it somewhere that he probably won’t find for days, and immediately starts pressing kisses to his collarbone. It’s wonderful.

                  Then she nips gently and rolls her hips at the same time, and Cullen cries, “ _Maker_ , Tamsin.” If she doesn’t stop, if he finishes before her, he knows he will drop dead asleep in seconds, and he will _not_ let that happen.

                  So, he slips both hands underneath her arse, lifts, and moves them both, until he’s leaned against the wall and she’s between his legs, back to his bare chest. She turns to look at him curiously. He simply moves her hair over her shoulder, begins kissing the back of her neck, and keeps kissing until the confusion fades away. Cullen runs his fingers across her scalp, noting how she relaxes against him, and then catches a handful and tugs.

                  She gasps and arches her back, head pressing against his chest. He grins, pleased with this new trick, and then runs his hand down the front of her chest, memorizing every little twitch and inhale, every stifled sound, until his palm reaches the closure of her breeches.

                  Here, Cullen hesitates. He knows what he wants—and _she_ knows what he wants, too, judging by the insistent presence at the small of her back—but… but the mad confidence of earlier falters, replaced by doubt. What does _she_ want? This is new. _They’re_ new, to each other, and he wonders suddenly if he’s read this right. Read _any_ of it right. He could be delirious with exhaustion, for all he knows. He could be making all the wrong choices and have no idea.

                  “Why did you stop?” Tamsin breathes, and the pure _need_ in every syllable assuages some of his doubt. He drops a kiss to her shoulder and she tilts her head to the side, giving him room to kiss her neck, too.

                  “I wanted to be sure. Wanted you to be sure,” he murmurs against her skin.

                  Tamsin makes an ‘mmm’ of understanding, and then slips her left hand under his. Cullen starts to lift his hand away immediately and she makes another sound, this time of displeasure, and presses her right hand down, keeping his hand from leaving her waistband.

                  “I’m sure,” she murmurs, so rich and throaty it’s a damned _purr._ Cullen looks down and realizes that she’s sliding the thumb of her left hand under the edge of her breeches. He can’t help but stare as she flicks her thumb, then twists her second and third finger, and a button he hadn’t realized was there pops open.

                  _Of course_ , some part of him thinks, _she_ had _to get impossible pants among all her new clothes_ , but then she’s moved both hands to the sides of his face and is turning him for a kiss. It’s a little awkward and a little difficult, chest-to-back as they are, but her lips are warm and welcoming. The doubt vanishes and the desire returns, fueled by the slide of her lips and sweet press of her body against his.

                  “Cullen,” she whispers. It’s not a request, not a cue, just… just his name on her tongue, in her voice, in the air between him.

                  He reaches around her with his free arm and runs his hand slowly down the center of her chest, feeling the ripple of buttons and embroidery under his hand. Her breath stutters, and she arches her back again, just slightly, her head falling back to rest on his shoulder. He’d first thought this would be quick and frenzied, just to see what ecstasy looked like on her face, but Cullen is a greedy, greedy man, and he wants more.

                  So, he drifts his hand back up to her throat, where the line of buttons starts, and undoes them, one by one. _These_ are normal buttons, blessedly, and so it’s no trouble to press hot, open kisses to her temple and cheek and jaw as he coaxes her blouse open, bit by bit, from neck to belly.

                  He keeps his eyes focused on her face, on the flutter of her eyelashes against the tattooed branches on her cheeks and the soft pants coming from her parted lips. He feels a brush of whisper-soft cotton replace her skin under his fingers, and a flush rises to her cheeks when he follows the fabric with his fingertips and finds the wondrous soft swell of breast and pert rise of a nipple. Experimentally, he grazes the latter with a blunt nail, and is delighted by how her breath catches in her throat.

                  “I can feel you smiling,” Tamsin breathes. Cullen’s grin only widens against her temple, and he repeats the motion once, just to hear that catch again, and then resumes unbuttoning her blouse.

                  All the while, the hand at her waistband stays put. He can’t abide the thought of diving into her trousers without preamble, all intent and frantic. Well, he certainly could, but not this time, not when they’re decidedly alone, she’s draped against him like this, and it’s his first chance to explore.

                  And ever-present at the edges of his mind is the threat of his exhaustion, ready to drag him under as soon as he relaxes or exerts himself too much.

                  Cullen wants to strip her down, wants to lay her back on his bed and memorize every line and scar on her beautiful body. Just the thought of it is enough to make him swallow and make his trousers grow a little tighter, if such a thing were possible. But awareness of his own limits wins out, and so he tucks that idea away for a later time.

                  Finally, the last button is undone, and Cullen looks down, looks at the creamy expanse of scarred, muscled abdomen, the soft crimson cotton of her breastband over her chest, rising and falling with each panted breath.

                  “You’re stunning,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss under her pointed ear. Tamsin shivers, smiles.

                  “You’re a tease,” she whispers back.

                  “I’m really not,” he reassures her, flicks open the remaining clasps, and slips his hand into her breeches.

                  Tamsin gasps, moans, squirms, and arches against him, somehow all at once. “ _Fenedhis,_ ” she hisses, the Elvhen sweet on her tongue, and then chuckles breathlessly.

                  Cullen doesn’t ask why she laughed. He’s rather distracted by the wet heat of her, so drenched that his breath sticks in his throat. She’s like this for _him_. He runs his fingertips along the gusset of her smalls, delighting in how her breath stutters in her chest, then slips his hand under the fabric and slides a finger into her.

                  The sound that comes from her mouth is probably supposed to be his name—he’d like to think so—but it’s splintered by lust. Tamsin fists one hand in the blankets and reaches out blindly with the other; Cullen catches it with his free hand and she knits their fingers together, squeezing as she presses back into him. The motion makes the sides of her unbuttoned blouse fall open, baring her chest, breastband and all, to the cold night air. He watches hungrily as her nipples pebble through the thin cloth, and almost wishes she hadn’t grabbed his free hand—and then he adds a second finger to the first, and she muffles a moan in the side of his neck.

                  Well, he wanted to see her undone. Cullen can’t remember ever having a wish so gloriously fulfilled.

                  “Maker, Tamsin,” he breathes, pressing the heel of his palm against her. She moans again, squeezes his other hand tightly. A bright, rosy red blooms across her face and spreads across her chest, and he adds kissing every inch of that flush to the list of things he needs to do soon. Preferably right after a nap.

                  He tilts his hand and brings his thumb up to circle her clit. She gasps, a beautifully desperate sound, and he can’t help but smirk as he presses a kiss to the shell of her ear and brushes his thumb over her swollen bud.

                  Oh, she _writhes_. “Creators, Cullen,” she pants, voice muffled against the side of his neck, “That…”

                  “Yes?” He rumbles. His voice is rough with exhaustion, but right now it sounds rather… well, sexy, if he can say so. Tamsin feels the same, judging by the way she drops her head back onto his shoulder. She mumbles something indistinct, and his hand falls still. “What?”

                  “Don’t blasted _stop_ ,” she cries, indignant and breathless. He can’t help but bend down to kiss her, swallowing her moan as he presses his thumb against her clit and lets the thrusting of his fingers drive the friction.

                  She squirms and writhes against him, little, constant movements that tell him as much as the sounds she making. He notices the way she arches her back when she wants more pressure, wiggles her hips when she wants his attention elsewhere, goes beautifully tense and limp at the same time when he’s doing it just right, and he knows when her breath stutters and she grips his free hand hard enough to hurt that she’s close. He drops his mouth to her ear, kisses the pointed shell and opens his lips to murmur to her—and then her free hand grabs his wrist, stopping him.

                  “No, wait,” she pants. He falls still, startled and confused, as Tamsin pulls away a little, his hand slipping out of her trousers as she turns between his legs to face him. Oh, she’s a vision—his confusion falters at the sight, her silver hair mussed and her skin flushed, her lips parted as she pants for breath. Her clothes are askew, tunic twisted, trousers undone—he can just see a glimpse of black fabric—but she doesn’t bother to fix any of it.

                  Tamsin catches the hand that was just between her legs and lifts it to her lips. Cullen’s breath leaves him in a whoosh as she slips his fingers into her mouth. He can feel her tongue against his fingertips, and his mind jumps to the other glorious things that tongue could do—and then she pulls back with a last kiss against his fingertips and says, “your turn.”

                  “My…” Cullen’s brain is _really_ not cooperating. “My turn?”

                  “Your turn.” She places his hand on her hip and leans forward, depositing a kiss on his shoulder.

                  “But you— you didn’t…”

                  “Come?” She asks, pulling back to meet his gaze. Her voice is smooth, but her face is flushed and flustered. “I know. I’m far too tired to do so more than once, and I refuse to fall asleep on you. So it will have to wait.” Her hands find their way to his belt, and the slight brush of pressure elicits a jump from his woefully-neglected cock.

                  It takes a minute for Cullen to process her words. When it finally registers, he blinks at her, and then starts laughing.

                  Tamsin’s hands still on his belt. She sits back and stares at him. “What?” she asks, a befuddled twist at the corner of her mouth.

                  “I’m exhausted, too, darling,” he says, and pulls her in for a kiss. He can feel the smile on her lips when she realizes what he means.

                  “So you…” she says, pulling back.

                  “So I,” he confirms, smiling at her, “don’t want to fall asleep on you, either. Literally or otherwise.” Tamsin giggles a bit at the imagery. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

                  “Tomorrow?” she echoes, confused. “Nothing? Well, we have a debriefing council in the morning, but it will probably be moved because we’re all so damn tired. But I’ve unofficially declared tomorrow to be a holiday… which means no drills for your soldiers, by the way. Why do you ask?”

                  “Are you taking over my command, now?” he asks, mock-sternly, but his eyes are laughing. He wouldn’t have made his men train anyway. They need, and deserve, a day of rest.

                  “Of course not,” she says, and kisses him again, then repeats herself. “Why do you ask?”

                  “Because I won’t have to worry about falling asleep on you once I get some sleep,” Cullen says, and steals another kiss. Her lips are _divine_. “And then it can be my turn, or our turn.”

                  “Sounds good to me.” Tamsin grins and seals it with a kiss, then moves to scoot back.

                  “Oh, no.” Cullen’s arms snake around her hips, holding her still. “It’s still your turn.”

                  “My turn?” she echoes, confused. Cullen slips one hand into her hair and takes up a handful of silver strands, watching how her pulse jumps in her throat.

                  “Your turn,” he confirms, and leans in to kiss her throat. His free hand slips back into her smalls—the angle is awkward, but he couldn’t give less of a damn at the moment, because the way she sighs when he buries two fingers in her makes him feel like a god.

                  “Cullen,” she moans, head falling back into his hand. He _really_ doesn’t care about the crick he knows he’ll have in his wrist, because this, seeing her face, watching her breasts rise and fall as she pants, feeling the slide of her palms over his chest as she seeks some kind of grounding—this is _everything_.

                  “You’re beautiful,” he breathes, almost to himself. He can’t use his thumb like this, but he can press up against her with the heel of his hand. Tamsin gasps softly, her hips rolling as she grinds against his palm. Cullen’s so hard it hurts, but Maker take him, she’s a sight, and it’s absolutely worth it as she leans forward, dropping her forehead to his shoulder and finding purchase for her hands on his back. He turns his head and drags his lips across the shell of her ear and she gasps.

                  “Cullen, _please_ ,” she groans, already nearly undone. Cullen doubts he’s quite _that_ good, but gods is it flattering, and more than that, as she rolls her hips and whines in the back of her throat…

                  “Better than any dream,” he murmurs absently. The hand in her hair finds its way to the small of her back. Tamsin lifts her head slightly, finding his gaze.

                  “Dream?” she starts to ask, and then the hand on the small of her back presses her into him, guiding her rhythm, and her eyes slip shut with a moan as Cullen rocks his hand against her, fingers thrusting deep. She drops her head again, shudders rippling down her spine, and Cullen presses wet kisses to her neck as she gasps, moans, and then arches her back with a keening cry.

                  His eyes find her face as she comes. There is no better sight than that strange expression of ecstasy and pain, her lips parted and eyes squeezed tightly shut, her body tight and pulsing around his hand—and then the slow wash of bliss throughout her body as she relaxes into him, boneless and trembling.

                  Cullen peppers her shoulder and neck with kisses. He’d love to ravage her mouth, but it’s currently pressed against the bare skin of his shoulder, panting heavily. He slips his hand from between her legs, and feels more than hears her whimper at the withdrawal.

                  Tamsin sighs once, in utter contentment, then sits up with what is an obvious effort. She blinks once, blearily, and Cullen can see the same exhaustion in her that is currently dragging at his bones. When she smiles at him, though, it’s sweet and utterly contented, and the kiss that follows makes his chest swell with happiness.

                  “Your turn,” she murmurs against his lips.

                  “No,” Cullen says, surprising himself with his firmness. She pulls back to look at him and he kisses her again, unable to resist the pull of her lips, before explaining: “I mean, I’d love that, but you’re exhausted—”

                  “I can—” Tamsin starts, and Cullen shakes his head firmly, silencing her.

                  “I’m exhausted, too,” he says, and doesn’t add that the very real possibility of him falling asleep mid-… well, mid-anything, is utterly humiliating to contemplate. “My turn will come later.”

                  She giggles, and it takes him a moment to recognize the pun.

                  “Very well,” Tamsin says, voice soft and dreamy, and slides out of his lap. She glances around for a moment, then looks back at him, sudden doubt on her face. “Can… can I stay?”

                  Cullen stares at her, blindsided. She winces at the expression on his face and stands up quickly, fumbling with the buttons of her breeches. “I’m sorry, I just… I’ll g-”

                  “N-no!” He exclaims hurriedly, grabbing for her wrist. She looks at him, expression guarded. Cullen pulls her to him, dropping a tender kiss on her unresponsive lips. “Of course you can stay,” he murmurs, pulling back enough to meet her gaze. “I was surprised you thought you had to ask. You can always stay.” He slips his hands under the sides of her unbuttoned tunic, slipping it off her shoulders. “ _Please_ stay.”

                  Tamsin’s smile starts shy, and quickly spreads across her face. “Okay,” she says, and kisses him gently and slowly, as if savoring it. The hot knot of arousal in the pit of Cullen’s stomach flares briefly before fading, smothered by his overwhelming exhaustion. Cullen gropes around for the quilt and, finding it, pulls it up over them both. He’s already so tired he can barely think.

                  Tamsin burrows down under the quilt, then curls into him, chest-to-chest. “Goodnight,” she whispers.

                  “Goodnight,” Cullen replies with a sleepy chuckle, and kisses her forehead. She kisses his collarbone in response, too tired to lift her head, and he feels the flutter of eyelashes against his skin as she closes her eyes.

                  The moonlight filtering in through the hole in the ceiling is pure and white. For the last week, Cullen has been seeing green and red in the corners of his eyes, always with a glimpse of Corypheus or the Fade. For the first time in a long time, as he holds the Inquisitor in his arms, he’s unafraid of the starlight.

 


End file.
